My recent endeavor with cross stitch has resulted in one of my all time favorites to date! A custom guitar strap! I wanted to give this a try and needed to someone I was familiar with and had read plenty about. I chose Chad Taylor from the bands Live and The Gracious Few. You may know Live from this song…
Man, those ads in the beginning of videos are annoying. Apologies.
Live is one of my all time favorite bands and I spent a lot….A LOT…of time traveling to see them over the years. The original members may no longer be together but there is little, if anything, that can replace the memories made from when they were the original Live. Quite a few of those memories are all time highlights of my time on this planet. The guitar strap kind of became a thank you for that. Here it is…!
I used a pattern maker for the more detailed work but, for the most part, it was merely a guideline. I realized quickly that, in all of its detail oriented glory, it made me purchase close to 20 skeins of floss that I only needing about 3 stitches out of per skein. Gah! Duly noted.
When trying to decide what to stitch on it, it evolved into a timeline of the band, but still custom to Chad. The band formed when they were high school lads and had their first practice in their drummers garage on Newberry Street in York, Pa. Their name was Public Affection back in that day and some of their first “holy crap! we’re getting paid to play!” gigs were in the imfamous CBGB’s of New York City. One place I’m still sad I never got to see before it closed. Quite the music history at that joint, for sure.
They were also hometown favorites, of course, playing incessantly in the York/Lancaster area. One of those places was the Chameleon Club. This next little section is homage to the club and Chad’s favorite guitar…a vintage sea-foam green Jazzmaster named after his daughter, Ruby Lou.
So far so good! And then I decided to do each of their albums.
I cannot tell a lie…I wanted to burn this thing a few times stitching these. I can’t even tell you how long they took…LONG, I know that. It felt like I changed floss about every 4-6 seconds.
Now, one of the absolute best things about seeing Taylor play Live is when he loses his marbles on that guitar. He is very well known for his “stomping” on stage and I feel I speak for many when I say once this happens…it’s game on. There are certain songs that when I hear them in the car…I am stomping…I can’t help it. Maybe not quite as aggressively but stomping nonetheless.
It’s kind of awesome, and silly at the same time, when you see it in stitch but that is THE signature Chad Taylor move…to omit it would be wrong. This is a personalized strap after all.As for the remaining parts: Aurora Creative Group is a media production company that Taylor is a principal partner in. They’ve produced films with the likes of Marcia Gay Harden, Doris Roberts, and the late Ernest Borgnine to name a few…Questionable Entertainment is a music label he launched to aid his new band The Gracious Few and other emerging artists…(that’s The Gracious Few album there in black and white…another nightmare to stitch )…and Think Loud with Live which is an online rock show of sorts where he and his rockstar pals do backstage interviews with other rockstars. I really wish/wanted to do their actual logo’s and had the design down in the first run but, once I went guitar strap shopping, I had to do some serious editing just to fit this much on. Boo. Out of that first draft though, I did get myself and awesome pattern of one the “hippy girls” from their Throwing Copper album. Where she ends up has yet to be decided but she will appear one of these days! I have fond memories with that lil chubster. Finally, I’m going to go out on a limb and say, the most important thing in his life…I stitched his wife and three daughters names based off the tattoo on his forearm.
There we have it! All in all it took around 60 hours to complete and I think it’s pretty dang cool. If for nothing else, it will make a nice decorative wall hanging!
Time to start a new project while I still have the bug…wedding sampler or birthday gift?? Hmmm…
~ An awesome repurpose of a vintage suitcase by Etsy seller Bass Box Shop. They have great instrument artwork in their store! We just hosted a wedding on the farm where they had almost the exact thing for their ceremony music in the field…fabulous.
~ A mix of old and new materials in one cool cuff. Mercedes Salazar’s agate stone and good ole cross stitch friendship bracelets DO go together. Love the hammered gold.
~ Possibly my favorite color palette ever. Earthy, cool, and pretty endless options. Brandigirl blog is a great resource for color palettes….I even stumbled on one based on her nephew. Cute
~ This nursery may be one of the more unique rooms I’ve seen for a lil one. Jamie Meares created an unexpected (and lovely!) room compared to those standby pinks/yellows/blues you usually see. Cool kid design they can grow with. Check out Lonny Mag for tons of GREAT room design!
~ Rockin skull wallpaper from Graham Brown! I love something that makes you look twice! Skulls can be pretty, friends…
~ Gold paint marker on rocks…may be the easiest, least expensive wedding seating chart yet. Bridal guide has a host of simple, pretty option for the budget bride…or ANY party thrower for that matter.
Ok. Let’s start with saying/recognizing/admitting this. The Sunday Dump is clearly not gonna happen. Now that that’s out of the way…
On to cross stitch.
I love cross stitch. I learned how to cross stitch from my mother when I was a youngin. She even had her own, legit, cross stitch store in our house when I was growing up. This was not a common thing in the late 70′s to early 80′s. At least I don’t know of anyone else with a store in their living room. Kinda weird and slightly unsettling now that I think about it. I could have been kidnapped.
I seem to go through phases with cross stitch though. I bang out about 3 in a few months and then don’t touch it for 6. I think it’s because I have a hard time even finding patterns that I like these days…cross stitch, for the most part, seems stuck in those 70′s. Samplers, geese in gingham, etc…etc…Don’t get me wrong, or offended if you are a cross stitcher yourself, I love those things for the nostalgia they bring (they were in every one of my family members homes) I just don’t want to stitch them. In the last few months I’ve been googling the heck out of “cool cross stitch” and am happy to report that there are others out that feel the same way. Subversive Stitches, Steoch, and Felicity Hall to name a few. They are clearly bringing cross stitch into the new world and I like that.
I’ve gotten on the wagon again with the stitchin and recently finished a kickin guitar strap. Look for it in a few days. On deck for the rest of this phase…some cuffs, a GIANT cross stitch, and 2 wedding samplers…personalized, and rock and roll style, of course.
Remember in the movie Airplane..”looks like I picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue…”? That’s this girl. Looks like I picked the wrong week to start blogging. Last I checked I had only one awesome follower (thank you!:) so i don’t think I’m letting the world down but it still stinks. I had a plan and it decomposed rapidly due to a new job and a family member getting some massive surgery.
Hopefully things get back to “normal” soon and I can get back on track. Until then I will be on the phone at work, molding my permanent ass mark in that hospital chair, or sleeping. Blogging on no sleep will just get me in trouble.
